connecting per choice
unpacking a quiet revolution – 3 of 5
[slight update on verbiage.. connecting per itch-in-the-soul..which is what i/we meant way back when.. but ‘choice’ to me now holds so much baggage.. ie: the finite set of choices.. of decision making is unmooring us.. et al.. rather.. imagine if we ness.. et al]
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In Net Smart, Howard Rheingold refers to this as networked individualism, via Barry Wellman.
Rather than relying on a single community for social capital, individuals often must actively seek out a variety of appropriate people and resources for diff situation.. – the person has become the portal.
We’re calling this interdependency, being known by someone, not getting lost.
-John T Spencer
The term interdependency came as we were researching laws for homeless teens. While some states allow 14 year-olds to declare independence, often resulting in homelessness, some are trying to restate that to a declaration of interdependence, where each teen is matched up with an adult. If we want to create spaces of permission, where learning is accomplished through living, we feel this interdependency will provide stability in the potential, and in fact encouraged, chaos.
When we set people free to choose their mentors, their connections, their interests, amazingly, we discover that we don’t need more resources. If you take a look at the community around you, there are incredible mentors and teachers and unlikely topics, in unlikely places. That’s not even tapping into virtual resources. We are recovering from a year where we thought virtual was all we needed. What we found was that within the school system, Skype didn’t always work, and sometimes the time zone issues kept us from meet ups we were craving. Turns out it was good that virtual didn’t always work. Going global is teaching us how to tap into our local community.
via localblu.com
No doubt, virtual connections are huge. In fact they are what is making this paradigm shift possible. They are what Illich and Dewey and so many others were hoping and waiting for.
In Walk Out Walk On, Margaret Wheatley refers to this as trans-local. You have a global connection and insight, yet you maintain your local culture. Perhaps we maintain and nourish a person’s unique culture through interdependency. Perhaps we tap into the potential of human capital when common core , testing, and seat time are no longer the compulsion, but rather, are you known by someone, are you connected to at least one person. A person that can then help to facilitate you, your unique curiosities.
Some resources we are falling in love with, that help connect people, that help create serendipity:
Alex of hOURschool.com is a great connection for us. They’re matching up people to local mentors and teachers. When you arrive at their site, you are simply asked, what do you want to learn? They find people within your local community to help you with that topic. We share so many common threads with Alex and Ruby, but the biggest is — looking for those mentors in local yet unlikely places. We look forward to experimenting with them.
Brian’s project in finding the expert on your block at myblocknyc.com. Hover over the yellow lines to see videos of people sharing their expertise. What a great way to pull down walls in a community. Help you find your people. Learn that all people have more than one story.
Katherine of radmatter.com – life is rad, make it matter. Katherine is working to link people directly to their future, taking out all the middle man and middle time worries. Career incubators, if you will. Missions are submitted by companies. Solutions are rated and reviewed. The more you play, the more you level up in talents you enjoy, and find employers that need those talents, developing relationships along the way.
Vic is starting up an physical space incubator of 80,000 sq ft at plugandplaycoorado.com.
Steve with readitfor.me has a potential game changer as well. Once you are set free to learn via choice, you find books to be very addictive, (if you hadn’t already). You find you want to know more of your art. You want to get into the heads of great thinkers of your art. We’re thinking Steve’s growing resource of book summaries could become a wikipedia of books. We’re imagining people growing his
site, especially as he is offering a Tom’s Shoes gifting to schools.
Kirill at instagrok.com has created a space that let’s the user’s choices perpetuate an ever changing visual portraying an individualized network (ameba). Not to mention, allowing the learning to drive that ameba.
And again localblu.com
As well as Jerry’s brain via the brain..
Dale of uncollege.org writes about creating serendipity
..how an intellectual match might work in New York City. Each man, at any given moment and at a minimum price, could identify himself to a computer with his address and telephone number, indicating the book, article, film, or recording on which he seeks a partner for discussion. Within days he could receive by mail the list of others who recently had taken the same initiative. This list would enable him by telephone to arrange for a meeting with persons who initially would be known exclusively by the fact that they requested a dialogue about the same subject.
Very similar to our vision, once again, of detox on a phone app. Text your self-reflection. Some hours later, get 5 text #’s of people in your same town, with similar reflections. Meet up in one of the town’s spaces of permission.
There are countless means to learning what you choose. No end really. And the beauty of all of this, it isn’t an either or, but rather, an incredible and.
This surpasses the issue of school, of achievement gaps, even of learning. This takes on the matter of what it means to be human and alive. A declaration of interdependence, being known by someone, could be more vital to a person than food, water, or shelter.
Imagine if we were to focus on feeding the soul, rather than on our current (often unquestioned) dependencies, ie: feeding the test scores, the number crunch.
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upacking a quiet revolution: one two three four five – via five elements
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be you. 